The present invention relates generally to a signal device for use in the railroad system, and more particularly to a device for detecting a high flange on a railroad car wheel as it moves along the track rail.
In recent years, there has been great concern over the decline in the U.S. railroad system. The decline has been in both quality and service which are, in the end, directly related to each other. One of the major factors behind the decline in the quality of the system is the high cost of maintenance, which the railroad companies have not been able to afford in view of their declining profits.
A major problem area of the maintenance on the railroad system is the detecting of normal and irregular wear in the system. This is particularly true for the wheels on which the railroad cars travel. The typical railroad wheel consists of a flat portion with a flange having a uniform depth attached to one side. The flat portion rides on the top of the rail with the flange extending along one side of the rail. Over a period of time, the flat portion will gradually wear thus causing the flange to grow larger. Therefore, an indication of the wear experienced by the railroad wheel may be given by the depth of the flange along side of the wheel. High flanges could very well result in derailments as the flange passes over switches and in turn tear up ties and tracks.
Over a period of years, various devices have been developed to provide an indication of normal and irregular wear of a railroad wheel. However, these devices have generally been mechanically complex and often times large and very heavy; thus preventing them from being freely portable. Further, these required in some instances to be mounted in a fixed location to properly function. This would greatly diminish their usefulness since a car on which wheel wear was to be checked would have to pass over this special track or several devices could be mounted on a series of tracks in a railroad yard again adding to the cost problem. Other devices, recently introduced, have involved electrical circuits which further add to the problem of reliability and repair since typically this equipment is subject to hard use and physical abuse. Some devices, while being portable, do require more than a single operator which again complicates the problem of trying to keep the costs down.
Therefore, there is a definite need for a device which has the capabilities of accurately measuring the depth of the flange of a railway wheel while also being relatively inexpensive, reliable, and freely portable.